NY Times: A Nice Place to Stand and Wait for a Bus That Might Stop Coming

[marmar]

A Nice Place to Stand and Wait for a Bus That Might Stop Coming


By JAMES BARRON
Published: April 10, 2009


Maybe it was a case of the left hand not knowing what the right hand was doing.

Two bus shelters on Cortelyou Road in Brooklyn — one at Ocean Parkway, the other at East Fifth Street — were replaced this week with shiny new steel-and-glass structures that can keep passengers on the B23 bus line dry on rainy days and unmussed on windy ones.

But the B23 is one of six bus lines in Brooklyn that the Metropolitan Transportation Authority says it will eliminate unless it gets a financial lifeline from the State Legislature.

Asked why new shelters were being installed along a line that could soon disappear, Seth Solomonow, a spokesman for the Transportation Department, noted that the proposed service changes were not definite. “But we will postpone any further installations on affected routes until the situation is clarified,” he said.

The shelters are being installed under a $1 billion contract with the Spanish company Cemusa, which is also replacing 330 newsstands and installing 20 public toilets citywide. The first of the Cemusa bus shelters was installed in December 2006; the Department of Transportation says more than 1,680 replacement shelters have gone up. Cemusa will put advertisements on the structures, which city officials call “street furniture.”

A spokeswoman for Cemusa did not immediately respond to questions about the new shelters on Cortelyou Road. ..........(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/11/nyregion/11shelters.html?ref=nyregion

[Bolo Boffin]

1. It does keep some jobs going for longer than they would have.

In Nashville, the public transportation put up benches all over the place so that they could sell the backs for advertising, whether the buses went by those stops or not.

[blogslut]

2. Sad

That cities are cutting back on mass transit. Foolish, IMHO. We need more mass transit, not less.

[dixiegrrrrl]

3. Wait...a SPANISH company is doing work for NYC ?????

There are no unemployed that need jobs in NYC?
No NYC companies that need jobs???

[w4rma]

4. The race to the bottom for cheaper and cheaper labor. (nt)